The present disclosure relates to a multifunctional image forming apparatus capable of executing a plurality of processing operations including processing operations related to image forming.
At present, a multifunctional image forming apparatus generally called as a multifunction peripheral becomes widespread. Such image forming apparatuses each include a variety of functions, and for example, include: a copying function copying a document; an electric mail transmission function attaching a document image generated by scanning a document to an electric mail to transmit the electric mail with the attachment; a facsimile function carrying out facsimile transmission and reception of a document; a printer function printing document data transmitted from a personal computer or the like to a sheet; a document storage function internally storing a document image generated by scanning a document; and others.
Also, many of the image forming apparatuses include an operating panel having a touch panel display and button images are displayed in a screen of the touch panel display to thereby form selection buttons respectively corresponding to copy processing, electric mail transmission processing, facsimile processing, document storage processing and others. When a user touches the selection button with a finger, the image forming apparatus executes a processing operation corresponding to the selection button.
In addition, the recent image forming apparatus registers (stores) identification information, such as IDs or passwords of users, and kinds of authority for utilizing the image forming apparatus of the users. As the authority of the users for the processing operations that can be executed by the image forming apparatus in response to user selection (hereinafter, called as executable processing operations), there are management authority to enable the image forming apparatus execute all of the executable processing operations and general authority to enable the image forming apparatus execute only specific processing operations among the executable processing operations. Hereinafter, a person who is registered as the user having the management authority is referred to as a “management authorized user” and a person who is registered as the user having the general authority without having the management authority is referred to as a “general authorized user”. When the user utilizes the image forming apparatus, the image forming apparatus requests the user to input identification information and identifies on the basis of the inputted identification information whether the user is the management authorized user or the general authorized user. Then, in a case where the user is the management authorized user, the image forming apparatus permits the user to execute all of the executable processing operations and, in a case where the user is the general authorized user, the image forming apparatus permits only the specific processing operations among the executable processing operations. In this manner, the security can be improved.
Further, some image forming apparatuses include a function controlling in accordance with the user authority whether or not to form each selection button in the screen of the touch panel display of the operating panel. That is, in the case where the user is the management authorized user, an image forming apparatus forms the selection buttons respectively corresponding to all of the executable processing operations (incidentally, this includes a case of disposing all of the selection buttons in a distributed manner in a plurality of switchable screens in addition to a case of disposing all of the selection buttons in one screen). On the other hand, in the case where the user is the general authorized user, the image forming apparatus forms only specific selection buttons respectively corresponding to the specific processing operations with permission of execution for the general authorized user among the executable processing operations. In this manner, when the general authorized user operates the image forming apparatus, operability of the image forming apparatus can be improved.
For example, a technique controlling to display icons in an interface screen in accordance with a group to which a user belongs is known.
Incidentally, as mentioned above, in the case where the user is the general authorized user, there is a function in which the selection buttons formed in the screen of the touch panel display of the operating panel are limited to only the specific selection buttons respectively corresponding to the specific processing operations among the executable processing operations. However, such a function may lack the convenience as mentioned later.
That is, there may be a case in which a plurality of users of image forming apparatus other than managers exist, and the scopes of processing operations of the image forming apparatus with permission of execution are made different from each other depending on these users. In such a case, the general authority is subdivided into a plurality of kinds of authority, for example, high level authority, middle level authority, and low level authority, and settings to define processing operations with permission of execution for each kind of subdivided authority must be carried out for the image forming apparatus. As a result, the work of setting becomes complicated and the convenience is impaired.
Also, for example, in a case where a user other than a manager temporarily acts for a part of the manager's duties or the like, there may arise a need to make the user registered as the general authorized user temporarily carry out some of the processing operations of the image forming apparatus without permission of execution. In this case, it is possible to cope with such circumstance by changing the processing operations permitted to be executed by the user registered as the general authorized user or by teaching the manager identification information to the user other than the manager, and however, in the former, a burden on the work of setting may arise, and in the latter, lowering of the security may result.